British Steel’s Chinese owners weigh attempt to recover millions in debts
The Chinese owners of British Steel are gearing up to try to recover hundreds of millions of pounds of loans from the company after the UK government took over its operations,Jingye Group said it was assessing the chances of recovering hundreds of millions of pounds in debts owed to it by British Steel, and is thought to have engaged advisers at the accountancy firm PwC to work out a valuation for the business,The Labour government took control of British Steel’s operations in April with emergency legislation after it became concerned that Jingye was planning to let blast furnaces at Scunthorpe cool,That would have led to 2,700 immediate job cuts as well as the symbolic loss of Britain’s ability to make steel from iron ore,Jingye is still the legal owner of British Steel, despite the takeover.
British Steel owed Jingye businesses £711m at the end of December 2023, according to previously published accounts.The bulk of those debts, £434m, is owed to Jingye’s Chinese subsidiaries.Another €312.5m (£266m) is owed to Jingye’s British holding company, Jingye Steel (UK) Holding Ltd.In newly released accounts for the UK company, Jingye said it is “currently assessing the recoverability of these balances and the potential for a commercial settlement”.
However, it cautioned that “due to the complexity of the arrangements and the ongoing nature of discussions, it is not yet possible to reliably estimate the amount or timing of any recovery”.The accounts suggest that Jingye is gearing up for negotiations with the government over the size of the debt repayment.Those debts would probably have been wiped out in the liquidation planned by Jingye, but were preserved by the government intervention.The Financial Times has previously reported that the government had considered legislation to wipe out the debts, although that would probably raise significant opposition from investors as it would represent the direct expropriation of privately held assets.Jingye also said it expected a “commercial resolution” in relation to the ownership of the business, suggesting it may hope to receive a payment for its shareholding.
It has engaged the law firm Linklaters to advise on recovering money, Sky News first reported.Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionPwC is preparing a valuation of British Steel’s assets, according to a person with knowledge of the business.PwC previously advised Jingye in the deal process to take over British Steel in 2020.PwC declined to comment.British Steel declined to comment.
Jingye has been approached for comment.
Nationwide draws up bonus plan that could give CEO £7m payday
Nationwide’s chief executive, Debbie Crosbie, could land a maximum pay package of nearly £7m as part of a new bonus plan that has been criticised as “borderline hypocritical” for a UK building society.The pay policy, which will be put to its customers next month, would raise Crosbie’s maximum payout by 43% to £6.9m.She had previously been allowed to earn up to £4.8m under the building society’s remuneration guidelines
Metro Bank sobers up and attracts a suitor | Nils Pratley
Some departures from the shrinking London stock market hurt more than others. It is doubtful that Metro Bank, if it’s about to fall to an approach from a London private equity firm, will be mourned by those shareholders on the wrong end of the wild ride for the shares from £20 at listing in 2016, to £40 two years later, to a plunge and painful recapitalisation at just 30p in 2023.In the overhyped early years, Metro said it was going to revolutionise high street banking via the novel strategy of opening expensive branches while the fuddy-duddy old guard were closing them. The party ended in an arduous tale of an accounting blunder, run-ins with regulators and a need for more capital, factors that inevitably weighed more heavily than the bank’s gimmicks such as giving free dog biscuits to the customers’ canines.But – surprise, surprise – Metro these days is not an enfeebled lender waiting to be put out of its misery
UK government rollout of Humphrey AI tool raises fears about reliance on big tech
The government’s artificial intelligence (AI) tool known as Humphrey is based on models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, it can be revealed, raising questions about Whitehall’s increasing reliance on big tech.Ministers have staked the future of civil service reform on rolling out AI across the public sector to improve efficiency, with all officials in England and Wales to receive training in the toolkit.However, it is understood the government does not have overarching commercial agreements with the big tech companies on AI and uses a pay-as-you-go model through its existing cloud contracts, allowing it to swap through tools as they improve and become competitive.Critics are concerned about the speed and scale of embedding AI from big tech into the heart of government, especially when there is huge public debate about the technology’s use of copyrighted material.Ministers have been locked in a battle with critics in the House of Lords over whether AI is unfairly being trained on creative material without credit of compensation
Hey AI! Can ChatGPT help you to manage your money?
Artificial intelligence seems to have touched every part of our lives. But can it help us manage our money? We put some common personal finance questions to the free version of ChatGPT, one of the most well-known AI chatbots, and asked for its help.Then we gave the answers to some – human – experts and asked them what they thought.We asked: I am 35 years old and want to ensure I have a comfortable retirement. I earn about £35,000 a year and have a workplace pension, in which I have saved £20,000
Dan Evans reproduces form of old to beat Frances Tiafoe at Queen’s Club
Dan Evans opened up the men’s tournament at Queen’s Club with his biggest win for more than two years, toppling Frances Tiafoe – the seventh seed and world No 13 – 7-5, 6-2 to reach the second round.The win was Evans’s first against a top-20 opponent since he defeated Alex de Minaur in the Davis Cup finals in 2023 and a positive step forward after an extremely difficult period in the final stretch of his career.Having spent five consecutive years inside the top 100, Evans is attempting to re-establish himself at the top levels of the game after falling down the rankings in August last year. The 35‑year‑old scaled as high as No 21 less than two years ago but he now sits at No 199 in the ATP rankings. He received a wildcard to compete at Queen’s Club and he will also need a wildcard in order to compete in the main draw at Wimbledon in two weeks’ time
Royal Ascot ready to roll with MPs worried future of racing is ‘on the line’
Hundreds of staff were putting the finishing touches to Ascot racecourse on Monday ahead of the five-day Royal meeting. The champagne is on ice, a variety of crustaceans have been plucked from the seabed and transported to Berkshire and the famous grey horses that lead the royal procession are ready to be harnessed. The most valuable, historic and glamorous show on turf is good to go.So it was a little jarring, to say the least, to spend an hour on Monday lunchtime in the company of assorted heavy-hitters from the racing industry and a pair of racing-friendly MPs from either side of the House, hearing warnings of a “triple whammy of challenges” that, according to a report from the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Racing and Bloodstock which was published on Monday, “present no less than an existential threat to the sport”.John Gosden, who will saddle the hot favourite Field Of Gold in Tuesday’s St James’s Palace Stakes, the feature event on Royal Ascot’s opening day, was among them
Workers in UK need to embrace AI or risk being left behind, minister says
Tell us: what questions do you have about the impacts of smartphones on children?
Disney and Universal sue AI image creator Midjourney, alleging copyright infringement
‘They went too far’: Musk says he regrets some of his posts about Trump
Meta to announce $15bn investment in bid to achieve computerised ‘superintelligence’
UK students and staff: tell us your experiences with AI at university